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I need to get Track 1 and Track 2 data off magnetic cards and send them over the network to a waiting server. What is an easy way to get the track data from a USB HID magnetic card reader?
In case it helps, I have a MAGTEK Mini Swipe Magnetic Strip Reader (part no. 21040140)
I'm OS agnostic -- a solution for Windows, Mac or Linux would be great. Preferably no .NET, but if that's the easiest way I'll go for it.
What do you all think?
Thanks!
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A magnetic stripe card is a type of card capable of storing data by modifying the magnetism of tiny iron-based magnetic particles on a band of magnetic material on the card. The magnetic stripe, sometimes called swipe card or magstripe, is read by swiping past a magnetic reading head.
In order to use the USB MSR Swiper, ensure that 'Enable Swipe' is toggled to 'Yes' in Control Panel > Settings. Click Swipe and the screen will dim while it's waiting for your card info to populate. Upon swiping, the Cardholder's name, card number, and expiration date will populate automatically.
A magnetic stripe reader, also called a magstripe reader, is a hardware device that reads the information encoded in the magnetic stripe located on the back of a plastic badge.
Every card reader I've seen has had a keyboard emulator, so you swipe the card and it sends characters through the keyboard buffer. Looks like this one also does that (documentation : http://www.magtek.com/documentation/public/99875206-16.01.pdf)
Page 14 describes the data sent after a swipe, which is again, fairly standard across card readers:
[Tk1 SS] [Tk1 Data] [ES] [Tk2 SS] [Tk2 Data] [ES] [Tk3 SS] [Tk3 Data] [ES] [CR]
So your track one data starts with % and ends with ?
Track two data starts with ; and ends with ?
I noticed the question was tagged credit-card though, so it would be worth making sure you know the consequences of sending raw card-data across a network (even an internal network). Take a look at the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) : https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml
There is a demo program for that specific reader that comes with VB source.
http://www.magtek.com/support/software/demo_programs/usb_swipe_insert.asp
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